Which set is the numerical range of an operator?

Abstract

In this survey paper, we consider the problem of which nonempty bounded convex subset of the complex plane is the numerical range of some bounded linear operator on a complex separable Hilbert space. We start in Section 1 with general operators and move subsequently to operators in certain special classes such as normal and hyponormal operators in Section 2, Toeplitz operators in Section 3, Hankel operators in Section 4, compact operators in Section 5, nilpotent operators and roots of identity in Section 6, Sn-matrices and companion matrices in Section 7, and, finally, nonnegative matrices in Section 8. The known main results will be briefly sketched, which are interspersed with relevant unsolved problems.